


A Planet That Insists

by toomanyhometowns



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Don't copy to another site, F/F, unconventional ice cream flavours
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-17
Updated: 2015-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:15:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26445466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toomanyhometowns/pseuds/toomanyhometowns
Summary: thought-42 asked:prompt for you!! Secrets, for Kimball/Carolina[in which Kimball is a revolutionary leader but also an ice cream architect]
Relationships: Agent Carolina/Vanessa Kimball
Kudos: 2
Collections: tumblrfic exodus





	A Planet That Insists

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thought](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thought/gifts).



> It is the time of Quar where I upload fic I wrote years ago! Title is from Ani DiFranco's [Falling Is Like This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjiFZ5lUbf0), lyrics [here](https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/anidifranco/fallingislikethis.html).

"There's an _ice-cream parlour_ nearby," Carolina says, the words sounding made-up even as they roll off her tongue.

"Not so loud!" Carolina thinks the soldier she's speaking with is nicknamed 'Volleyball,' and she's going to follow up about that later, honest. Volleyball crosses her index fingers in an X over her lips in an exaggerated gesture of secrecy. "Do you want to start a riot?"

"Usually," Carolina cracks before she can help it.

Volleyball snickers. She's tall, and she stands with a straight back, chin lifted. Carolina wonders if she picked the habit up from Kimball—a lot of the New Republic soldiers stand like that, hands often folded in their pockets in lieu of being wrapped around a trigger guard. "Anyway, you didn't hear it from me, but I've heard they finally unlocked their doors again. I'd try there."

"Thanks," Carolina says. She doesn't stay to get directions—she's trained for reconnaissance, after all.

—

The commander of the New Republic is sitting alone, unless you count the mound of ice cream in front of her. It's large enough (and has enough little umbrellas and tinsel decorations stuck in it) that Carolina actually can't say anything for a solid minute after she ducks through the front door and into the store.

The store itself is very dim—the boarded up windows and door allow only the slightest light to filter through, and the animal-shaped lights dangling from the ceiling are clearly hooked up to Armonia's unreliable main grid and not the private military generators favoured by both bases.

Carolina's still in armour so she doesn't have wait for her eyes to adjust, switches to night vision on reflex. It makes the smile Kimball levels at her read as two-dimensional, bland. It hides the wrinkles in the corners of her eyes.

"Agent Carolina, you found me."

"I did," Carolina says. She glances at the counter. "Is there someone working here?"

"Just me," Kimball says, tapping one of her ubiquitous datapads with a metal canteen spoon.

Carolina hesitates at the edge to Kimball's booth, only sits when Kimball nods at the bench opposite her. Her armour catches on the fabric of the cushion as she scoots closer to the wall. "You made… that?"

The ice cream pile looks even bigger close-up.

"I did," Kimball says. She leans in. "I'm somewhat of an ice cream architect. Would you like a bite?"

She would. That, and an explanation. "I don't have a spoon."

"What's mine is yours," Kimball says, lips still quirked to the side. She twirls the spoon around her fingers. "You'd have to take your helmet off, first."

Carolina flips through as quick a scan of the surrounding area as she can—which, it bears mentioning, is pretty fucking quick. "Sure."

Kimball holds still as she deactivates her helmet seal, and that stillness, that patience, sends a tiny flash of fear through Carolina. _She knows something, there's something else going on, she_ —

She has a very slim rim of chocolate ice cream around her lips, and she's still offering Carolina the spoon.

Carolina peels her fingers off her helmet, leaves it in her lap and shovels a heaping spoonful of what she expects to be pistachio in her mouth.

"Oh," she says in shock, pronunciation blurry from the ice cream still sitting on her tongue. "Is this… basil?"

"What's basil?" Kimball asks.

Carolina shakes her head and gets a spoonful of probably-vanilla to clear the surprise. "An herb I liked, growing up." Kimball nods and Carolina wants to say _it doesn't matter_ , but eats a bite of chocolate instead.

They trade the spoon back and forth, and Carolina relaxes her grip on her helmet. She steers clear of the might-be-rum-and-raisin (her father's favourite), and finds one that tastes nearly like the bubblegum ice cream her mother had snuck her, one hot summer when she was four.

"They hadn't changed the passcodes since I worked here," Kimball volunteers, licking off the wooden end of a little umbrella. "Not that anybody's allowed to know that I spent the summer before the revolution scooping ice cream."

"Of course," Carolina says. She tries to remember what job she'd had before enlisting, and comes up short.

Kimball asks, "Can I tell you something else?"

"Of course," Carolina repeats. The hair on the back of her neck rises.

"You have some ice cream—" she reaches out a finger, slowly, slowly, and brushes the corner of Carolina's mouth. "—there."

Carolina grins, she can't help it. "You're one to talk," she says, and plants both hands on the table. She darts her tongue quickly around her lips, feels the familiar kick of an adrenaline rush. "You've got some, too."

"Do I?" Kimball asks, tone serious but eyes glinting.

"You do," she says, and surges across the table to press her mouth to Kimball's, faster than Kimball could ever react to.

She's back in her seat an instant later, muscles humming, mind racing. _If she—I'll—_. Impulse, response.

Kimball slides the bowl to the side, echoes Carolina's grin from seconds before, and holds still. "Sorry, where was that? I'll need you to show me again."

Carolina's already leaning towards her again.


End file.
